Will internationalisation be completed at end of 1.2 cycle?

[sheepy]

Hello, I'm new to here, hoping to find some answers to my localisation attempts.

I'm translating MapTool on request of my Chinese D&D community, but after I translated net.rptools.maptool.language.i18n.propertes from 1.2 trunk, I discovered that considerable amount of UI strings and other resources are hardcoded.

Since most Chinese users who need translation don't know English, typically all resources would have to be translated to be of use to them, not only all the menus and dialogs but also default token tree folder names.

Just want to know whether these resources will be internationalised at end of 1.2 cycle, so that I can wait for it and localise those resources by that time, or should I go back empty handed because I'm unwilling to translate hard-coded string?

Also, the line "UIManager.setLookAndFeel(LookAndFeelFactory.WINDOWS_LNF);" in main function of net.rptools.maptool.client.MapTool is critical to correct display of CJK characters, but it is commented out. Assuming it has to remain disabled for official version, is it possible to have a command line flag or other mechanism that controls whether it is on or off?

Thanks.

[Emryys]

I'm translating MapTool on request of my Chinese D&D community....

Wow... cool... Hope it can be done... Welcome

[trevor]

Hiya sheepy, welcome to the forums !

A long time back we had someone doing a spanish translation, but development speed made it hard for them to keep up with the translation, so we got lazy about externalizing the strings.

If you are seriously interested, I could externalize the existing strings so that you can translate it. I'd be happy to put it into the default codebase

[dorpond]

Since most Chinese users who need translation don't know English,

Interesting! I had the impression that most chinese knew how to speak english. But then again, speaking is a lot different that reading and writing...

[dLANbandit]

Since most Chinese users who need translation don't know English,

Interesting! I had the impression that most chinese knew how to speak english. But then again, speaking is a lot different that reading and writing...

You are missing the caveat. He said Chinese users who don't need translation, know English, and those that need translation, don't know English.

[sheepy]

I saw that translation attempt. ^^' It'd be great if the strings can be externalised, since I can keep up through SVN. I've already translated whatever that is in the property files, actually, and I'd rather not see it go to the bin.

And, indeed. Although we have a dedicated group of fire hearted people who translated many many monsters and classes, a great rift still exists between those who command good English and those who don't. The first (me among them) has no need for translation nor spare time to translate. The later have difficulty using dictionary. Thus the rate of rule translation is not excellent, and quality really varies. To make matter worse, some of the core rule translations are still in 3e. (Ambidexterity anyone? We got a question on that a while ago...)

I myself is a Java & PHP programmer. Although our lots are relatively common among D&D gamers, I seems to be one of those few pros who is willing to code and translate instead of writing storyboards, and I'd rather help DMs first since we're badly in need of DMs. I'm working on several IRC DM tools, for example.

I'm attached to many projects (e.g the lone Adblock Plus Chinese list...) so I'll be unable to frequent this forum, but I am using SVN days and nights in office and at home. There are also people who don't have the know-hows but can help me translates.


P.S. A note on Chinese with good English. On average China is still a poor country, and those who can afford to go oversea are often those who can afford better education (or, sometimes, *any* education), or those who get grants by passing exams with flying colour. Many of the rest get headaches when they see English, much less read.
I lives in Hong Kong, by the way, which is an entirely different picture...

[trevor]

I'll run the code through a string externalizer and see how that goes

[dLANbandit]

This sounds like a really good source for testers, trevor. 1.3 billion or so.

BTW sheepy if you need any explanation on two weapon fighting please ask in another thread. I use it a ton in many of my characters and thus am quite versed in its rules.